


Fair and Free

by martial_quill



Series: clearer than clear water [3]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Elven Cultures and Customs, Estel, Friends to Lovers, Fun With the Kindi, Fun with Mithlond, Fun with the Falathrim, Fun with the Noldor, Fun with the Sindar, Healing, In Which I Shoot the Laws and Customs of the Eldar, Multi, River Daughters, Second Age, Twisting Canon Into a Pretzel: the Sequel, culture clash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2019-11-07 08:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17956979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/martial_quill/pseuds/martial_quill
Summary: Second Age 584-750. Neniel keeps an eye on Gil-galad, bonds with Elrond and looks after Fëanorians. Maglor offers counsel, attends a birth, and composes ballads. Elrond strikes up correspondences, and Gil-galad has a long list of questions.Or, even in the lands of weeping and war, there are times of joy and healing.





	1. Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> WOOP-WOOP! We're BACK! The awaited sequel to For the First Time in Forever is finally here!
> 
> This fic is probably going to be structured a bit differently from First Time, since the outline I have for it reads less like a novel, and more like a TV show series. Sorry about that. But hey, it means Second Age Shenanigans for everybody, and that's always a good thing. 
> 
> Updates will also probably be intermittent at best, since Uni kicks in next week, and I'm trying to do more stuff there, and more students at my tutoring work this semester. But I'll do my best! 
> 
> For any new readers, a quick recap of _For the First Time in Forever:_
> 
> Meet Goldberry. She is the daughter of the Maia of the Brandywine River and a leader of the Kindi called Nurwë. (The Kindi are a group of Avari, originally Nelyarin at Cuiviénen.) She ran into Maglor over a year ago, and decided that he needed some company, but she also wanted to move to Mithlond. That meant learning Sindarin, and guess who happened to be available as a tutor?
> 
> When she and Maglor went to visit her family, it emerged she wasn't the only one of the Kindi who wanted to see Mithlond. She ended up being elected the leader of the expedition, and spent the latter half of it growing into that position. Meanwhile, Maglor has, after much thought, decided that endless lamentation is a very poor way to pass the time, and has decided to move closer to Mithlond, to be there for Elrond. 
> 
> Complicating all of this is that Maglor and Goldberry have fallen in love with each other, but Maglor is still an exile, the Oath of Fëanor remains unsolved, and now she is a political figure. So without further ado, I give you the sequel: _Fair and Free!_

“Why didn’t you tell me about your niece?”

In the water, Maglor’s face turned stunned and surprised.

“I have a niece?”

She blinked. “Yes. How do you not know? And why didn’t you tell me?”

“Caranthiriel? Does she claim Caranthir as her father?” Maglor was looking at her very intently now, with a mix of emotion on his face that she could barely begin to sort through. There was incredulity there, but not quite disbelief. And hope, stubbornly clinging there.

Neniel nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, she does.”

Maglor let out a slow breath. “I don’t believe it.”

She frowned, holding the bowl a little further away from her face. “You don’t?”

“No. Well, maybe – I’m not making sense, am I?” Maglor shook his head, as though to clear his head with the motion. “If you’re going to lie about your heritage, there are better names to pick than that of the House of Fëanor. Names with fewer enemies. And…our last year, in Formenos. Caranthir and his wife wanted children, they made no secret of it, but she wanted to wait until things calmed down. And then the Darkening happened, and Caranthir and his wife came back with us to Tirion. But she stayed behind with my mother, she did not come with us to Alqualondë.” He drummed his fingers. “Not impossible, especially if she had something of foresight that we would –” He broke the sentence off awkwardly. “But. I can barely believe it. That Caranthir would leave his child behind.”

Neniel felt a surge of impatience. “Yes, because it was _Caranthir_ who was carrying Glasseth.”

Maglor swallowed, and his voice was very quiet as he spoke. “Her name is Glasseth?”

She took a deep breath. “Elrond introduced her as Glasseth Caranthiriel, cousin to Celebrimbor. She looks a bit like him and like you.”

Slowly, Maglor smiled, soft and tentative. “Does she?”

Neniel nodded. “Around the eyes, and the nose. Celebrimbor and Gil-galad have the same nose, as well. Finwion inheritance?”

“Apparently,” Maglor replied, smiling wryly now. “Not Elrond, though.”

“No, not Elrond.” Elrond looked very little like Maglor, or Gil-galad, or the Noldorin part of his family. She sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me? If you suspected that you had another niece, or another nephew–”

Maglor shook his head. “I didn’t _suspect_.”

“You named Caranthir as her father immediately. Before I told you.”

“Who else could it have been? He and Curufin were the only ones of us who were married, and Curufin and Lindonís…well.” An unhappy shrug from Maglor that spoke volumes about the health of Curufin’s marriage at that time. “Celebrimbor was already an adult, by the time of the Darkening. They had stayed together for his sake, as much as anything else.”

Ouch. Well, that certainly supported the _cousin_ argument. And he had a point. If you had to lie about who your father was, why would you pick Caranthir, or any of the Fëanorions, with all the political baggage that came with those names?

“Do you know anything else?”

There was an eager light in Maglor’s eyes, for this niece that he did not know, belying the casualness of his tone. He had not spoken of Celebrimbor much, aside from brief mentions, and Neniel suddenly understood why, looking at his face.

_Was he always this open? Or do I just know him better now?_

“No,” Neniel said. “I haven’t had much chance to speak to her yet. I’ve been getting my people settled in, the past few days. I’ve spoken with Celebrimbor, arranging for some of our smiths’ clans to be apprenticed to some of his people. But not to Glasseth.”

“How is he?”

“Well, I think.” She cast her mind back to Celebrimbor, letting the image of him float across her mind, standing in the heat of the forge, an intent look on his face, long dark hair twisted into a knot, his gloved hands fluttering as he spoke. Then she reached out through the water to Maglor. His eyes drifted closed as he felt her mind reaching for his, and then he smiled, soft and unguarded.

He opened his eyes, and her stomach flipped. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. “I’ll try and find out more, shall I?”

“…I’d appreciate that. Should I expect to hear from you again, then?”

She smiled wryly at him. “Yes. I miss you.”

His smile widened, before he glanced away, almost shyly. “I miss you too.”

* * *

Regen was at the kennels, Ráca was exploring the library, her people were working in the orchards, paddling down the Lhûn, or settling into their new apprenticeships. And that left her free to spend the morning chasing this question down, as she walked around the Street of Ravens. It had taken her a little while to work out the logic of the name, but it made her smile now.

Through the walls of the buildings, she could smell the scent of molten metal, pouring out of the work-shops. On the stone roofs, towers like tiny copies of those reflected in Maglor’s songs stretched upward, fire and smoke pouring out of them. The street was dotted with fountains, singing brightly of sunlight, stone, and moss, and Neniel hummed along to their tunes as she walked down the street. It wasn’t this one, or this one…

Here. The low building smelled like flowers. It was built in grey stone, with wide open windows, and inside, a woman was sitting at a table, singing as she ground some herbs in a mortar and pestle. Her voice was low and rough, and Neniel thought she was singing in Quenya.

The fountain outside the building leapt and bubbled in the sunlight. So many fountains, scattered all over Mithlond, all singing of sunlight and stone, of joyful work underneath the sun, as they listened to the songs of the Elves. Celebrimbor and the other Noldor had built most of them, and Neniel found herself lingering by them often. It was not the same as speaking with the Lhûn, but it helped.

It was absurd, considering that she’d spent half of the previous year away from home, to feel homesick already. But then, she had spent that year roaming the Great Wood, land that she knew as well as she knew her own body. Mithlond was beautiful, but it still felt strange, to wake up surrounded by stone, to go to bed on a raised mattress instead of a sleeping mat over a dirt floor.

It would pass.

Glasseth glanced up from her mortar, and caught Neniel’s eye.

Neniel waved to her.

Glasseth set the mortar down on the table, then came to the window, and leaned forward, sticking her head and shoulders out through it. Dark hair spilled down her back, caught in a neat fishtail braid.

“Are you alright? Are you lost?”

Neniel smiled, and got up from the fountain, jogging closer. “Yes to the first, no to the second! I didn’t get a chance to talk much to you when we were introduced. I’d like to amend that, if I may.”

Glasseth tilted her head back, and there was a hint of arrogance in the angle of it, in the flick of her eyebrows. “Really.”

The tone was flat, and underneath it, something wary. As though she expected Neniel to hurt her, in some way.

 _I mean you no harm,_ Neniel thought deliberately, letting the truth shine on the surface of her mind, _and I bear you no ill will._ “Really.”

Glasseth’s eyes turned thoughtful, as she continued to look at her. Then, after a long moment, she spoke. “The door is on the south side. I can’t leave the herbs right now, or they’ll lose their scent.” 

* * *

She had crushed the flowers into a sweet-smelling white paste, and scooped that into a bowl of water. Now she was carefully taking bottles out of a cupboard, and setting them around in a circle around another bottle, the only one of the collection which was empty.

_Why on earth does she need that many bottles?_

Some of the bottles were very small, and would fit in the palm of Neniel’s hands, but there was one that was about the size of a water skin. None of them looked like they were made of ceramic, and that was interesting. Perhaps they were glass, too? But the process had looked so complicated, when she’d helped Mistinda find her apprenticeship.

“What are you doing?” Neniel asked, sitting down on the stool that Glasseth had pulled out with her foot.

“I make perfumes,” Glasseth said, as she uncorked the oil bottle, and poured some of it into wide-necked bottle in the centre. “Like my mother.” Glasseth’s smile was too bright as she looked over her work, and the skin around her eyes scrunched the same way Maglor’s did. It was unnerving, actually. At least her eyes did not glow. “There was leisure for such things, in Aman. To play with stuff for the senses. Nothing _but_ time, some days, it seemed.” A note of bitterness in her voice, as she stirred the mixture. “Less of that during the War of Wrath, of course.”

Neniel blinked. “You came over with the host of the Valar?”

Glasseth’s nod was brisk, as her hands set the oil bottle down, and then she unscrewed the lid from one of the little bottles. A powerful, warm smell emerged, and Neniel sniffed.“I was begotten almost a week before the Darkening. My parents were not speaking of it much, at that time, it was still so early. And then the Darkening happened, and Finwë died, and my father and his brothers swore the Oath. And it was me, Amil and Grandmother Nerdanel. Neither of them wanted to leave for Middle-Earth, or go out to war against the Enemy, not then. We got news, in Aman of Middle-Earth, but it wasn’t enough. Never enough. And we heard all the news, and so long, were forbidden to do _anything_.” Bitterness again, and barely suppressed fury in Glasseth’s tone, there, as she moved to the next bottle, and repeated the previous step, silent for a while. She spoke again, when she replaced the lid. “But. Even after Doriath. Even after the Havens of Sirion…I still had two uncles and a cousin left in Middle-Earth. So when Finarfin said that we were going out to fight, I decided to come. My mother did, too, but she wanted to go back to Aman, after the fighting was done. She was very tired.”

From the look in Glasseth’s eyes, she wasn’t the only one. Neniel swallowed, and nodded. “And you decided to stay?”

Glasseth nodded, as she reached for a third small bottle. When she unscrewed the lid, a smell like a hundred wild roses floated out. “Middle-Earth is very different from Aman. And…I don’t think I could go back, not really. It’s like going from childhood to adulthood. You can’t go back.”

The finality of the words was spoken lightly, and Neniel very deliberately turned her thoughts away from where they wanted to go, towards Maglor and his exile. Instead, she listened closely for the sound of the fountain leaping and bubbling outside, so that the thoughts would be wrapped within the sound, and kept her tone light and curious as she spoke. “Well, while I’m prying, I may as well ask.” A half-smile from Glasseth, wry, but not strained. Not angry. “Did you ever meet your uncles? The last two?” 

Glasseth shook her head, as she reached for one of the bigger bottles, and uncapped that as well. “No. I never got the chance. They kept well clear of Finarfin’s host, for most of the fighting. And after the theft of the Silmarils, they vanished. I don’t know whether I’m glad for that, or not.”

Guilt and relief, sorrow and sudden understanding flooded her.

Vanished. As far as she knew, her uncles had _vanished_. She did not even know that Maedhros was no longer alive. Her last – and only memory – of her last living uncle had been of him after they slew the guards of the Silmarils.

She did not know that her uncle Maglor was alive, and healing, and whole, and not very far from Mithlond at all.

But Maglor had contacted Elrond. Not Celebrimbor. And he had asked her to keep the word of his return to Lindon quiet, before she started calling him Iarwain ben-Adar.

“Anyway,” Glasseth said, as she corked the wide-necked bottle, and began to shake it vigorously. “When the time came for the hosts to return, I decided to stay. Someone had to keep an eye on Celebrimbor!”

Neniel watched as she shook the bottle, and swallowed at the bitter taste on her tongue. The words were right there on the tip of her tongue, and she took a deep breath, running over Glasseth’s words.

She counted Maglor and Maedhros as kin. Even after Sirion, where they had brought terror and war to the refugees of the falling kingdoms of Beleriand. But she had not made her peace with their deeds, either.

_I think if you and the other Kindi don’t talk about me much, Gil-galad will probably not drag me in to be executed._

Neniel looked at Glasseth’s strained, unhappy face, as she turned away to put the bottles away in a cabinet, and closed her eyes.

Outside the workroom, the fountain sang and bubbled, its music easing the ache of guilt a little.

“Does Celebrimbor agree with that?” Neniel asked. “Or does he think it’s the other way around?”

Glasseth wrinkled her nose. “He was an adult by the time the Darkening happened, so he’s older. But honestly, _I’m_ not the one who forgets to eat, when I’m in the middle of a project!”

“I’m older than Ráca, too. That’s never stopped her from making sure I remember to eat, either.” Neniel smiled. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Well, I had an ulterior motive,” Glasseth said, smiling. Neniel felt a flash of alarm, but kept her smile in place. “Tell me. What’s it like, when your mother is a river? And how does that _work?”_

Relief made her laugh, clear and bright. “You mean, how have my parents stayed married?”

“I was thinking along the lines of: Is she made of water?”

Neniel blinked at Glasseth, guilt swept away by confusion. “Come again?”

“Is she made of water?” Glasseth asked. “Elrond said that you’re the daughter of the Baranduin. Is your mother made of water? How did that _work?”_

“My mother took the form of an Elf, when she decided to stay with my father. She is the Maia of the Brown River, spirit and water both. And now almost an Elf, as well, after so many years in our village. So no, she is not made of water.”

“Is her strength bound to the river?” Glasseth asked. “Could she ever come and visit you in Mithlond, without altering the course of the river?” 

“Hmm. I think so. Ossë can come up the river to visit us, without causing some kind of massive tidal wave. I don’t see why Emmá couldn’t. Whether she would is another question. Change is a slow thing, for her.” But it wasn’t slow for them. And Regen was growing up quickly, too. She would be getting her tattoos in fourteen years, and Neniel was her sister, not her mother.

 _I need to talk to them about that_.

Still. Ataro and Salyë had ordered her to come back, in time for the autumn festival. It was the end of spring now, just beginning into summer. Surely they could work something out. Dînen had changed the way she lived for the sake of her daughters in the past. She could do it again.

Glasseth was looking sheepish, and Neniel arched an eyebrow at her. “You had another question?”

“Well…if she’s not made of water, I suppose it might not work the way I thought it did,” Glasseth said slowly. “But doesn’t it tickle? All the fish moving around the river constantly?”

Neniel thought about that, her head moving to the side. “Well, I think Emmá’s used to it. But Tauren, my middle sister, came out as a stream, and I decided to give her some otters to play with one day, so I put them in her water. I think that’s what made her decide to try assuming the body of an Elf.”

Glasseth’s eyes were thoughtful. “Hmm. Can _you_ turn into a stream?”

“Yes.”

Glasseth smiled. “Show me?”

Neniel cast the other woman a considering look, and then pulled her tunic and breeches off. Glasseth held out her hands for the clothes, and set them on the bench.

“This could create some mess.”

“That’s what brooms are for,” Glasseth said.

Neniel took a breath, and listened to the water, running cool over the stone outside, hovering in the air of the work-room, pulsing through her veins, water in every part of her body. Morning dew slicking off the leaves of the trees in the orchards. To the north, the great aqueduct that ran through Mithlond, all singing and flowing and rejoicing. To the south, the Lhûn’s melody. And just outside, the leaping fountains of the street.

She slipped in to join them, and left a pile of dirt on the floor of the work-room behind her.

The stone of the work-room was cool beneath her, and the sunlight that poured in from the windows was faint. She hummed at the feel of the edges of the flagstones, and ran over to the Elf-woman’s shoes, slipping over them in playful greeting.

Above her, Glasseth giggled. “Is it horribly rude if I try and pat you?”

She laughed back, and reached up, forming a watery paw and moving over Glasseth’s shoes. Glasseth giggled again, and they played for a while, the water flowing from shape to shape, otter, grayling, a swift kestrel, a tothû. After the final shape, Neniel flowed back over the stones, and concentrated on the feeling of stone underfoot, the sensation of lips as they moved, the memory of needles on her back, stretched scars, the drumming rhythm of her pulse, the sound and tickling of her hair as it swished down her back.

She stood, and checked quickly. Limbs, extremities, scars, tattoo, hair. She looked entirely like an Elf again, and all that remained of the change were the droplets sliding down her skin.

Glasseth smiled, and went to a cabinet, pulling out a towel, and then hesitating. “Do you need one of these to dry off?”

“Not really,” Neniel said, as she pulled on her leggings. “But I prefer being half-wet, anyway.”

“Don’t you get awkward looks? Walking down the street with your leggings half-stained?”

Neniel laughed, pleased at the bluntness. “Well, as it happens, yes. But I’ve yet to find a solution for that.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Glasseth said. “The Falathrim have a style of garment, a kind of skirt that wraps around the hips. It might be a good style to adopt, for you and your people, since you’re in and out of the water so much.” A pause. “Literally.”

“That would work! Thanks!” She glanced at the sun outside. “It’s almost noon. Are you hungry?”

Glasseth nodded. “Starving.” Neniel shot her an alarmed look, but Glasseth did not seem to notice. “Let’s go.”

They walked out of her work-room, the pile of dirt unswept on the floor behind them.

* * *

“Will you be alright?” Elrond asked, as Maglor braided his hair. He was more than old enough to attend to that himself, but he had sat down in front of Maglor that morning, with a comb, a strip of leather, and an expectant, hopeful smile. The conclusion had been foregone. 

Maglor reminded himself that this was not, actually, an inane question, given how he had been spending his time prior to Neniel meeting him. Endless lamentation by the sea-shore was not actually the healthiest way to live, and it was rather ridiculous that it had taken a river-daughter, a Maia, a lord of the Unbegotten, and a dog to remind him of that.“Yes, I will. There’s only so long even an Elf can spend doing nothing but grieving, and at a point, it’s not helpful anymore. It simply becomes…”

“Like a drug. An escape from actually living.” Elrond’s voice was calm and analytical, even though the sorrow of it shone clear on the surface of his mind.

“Yes, and apparently the Song has decided that I’ve spent enough time lazing around,” Maglor said, deliberately light, as he pulled more of Elrond’s black locks into the braid. “Last time, it was a river-daughter, and Ossë of the waves. I don’t want to know who appears, if I continue to be stubborn.”

“Maglor, you will stop being stubborn when the tide stops, and not a minute earlier,” Elrond said, and he laughed. “I am glad, though. I missed you.”

“I know. I missed you too. Although considering how we parted, that doesn’t sound very good.”

“No, it doesn’t. But you’re not doing it again, and you’re not going to make a martyr of yourself, even if Neniel has to sit on you.”

Elrond’s voice was not teasing, now. Simply firm, and determined, as though delivering orders. Maglor felt his lips twist into a wry smile. “She doesn’t have a great deal of patience for self-pity, no. Aside from the winters.”

“Why does the winter make a difference?”

Maglor sighed. This was not his story to tell, but it was not a secret, either, considering that all of her people knew about it. And above all people, _Elrond_ could surely be trusted with this. “She reflects the seasons, like her mother Dînen does. Dînen sleeps, in the middle of winter, but Neniel…she’s not well. Her people call it the ice, but it feels like shadow. Despair and numbness and lines of thought like descending spirals.”

Elrond made a sympathetic noise in the back of his throat. “And it’s always been a part of her? Even without fighting Orcs, or the Enemy?”

“So she implied.” Maglor hesitated, as he tied the braid off. “I’ve lost all rights to ask for favours from you, but–”

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Elrond said, neatly pre-empting the request, as he turned around to face Maglor. “You're my foster father. What you did doesn't change that. And you love her. Of course I will.”

Maglor felt a familiar warmth spread through him, and he smiled at Elrond. “Thank you.”

Elrond gave him a brilliant smile, and then took up his bow. “Come on. You can’t live off fish forever. Besides, there has to be some vegetables around here somewhere. Next time I visit, I’ll bring oil and flour, too.”

The words were warm as the sunlight on the clearing around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. For anyone who is confused by the opening, the story begins during the conversation that Maglor and Neniel have at the end of First Time. 
> 
> 2\. Ravens are very intelligent birds, known for their use of tools, deeply attracted to shiny things, much like their smaller cousins, and also very prone to showing off. The Noldor love them. 
> 
> 3\. Iarwain ben-Adar, for any new readers, is a nickname/alias that Neniel has given to Maglor, so that her people when they gossip don't lead the Noldor straight to him. It translates to "Eldest and Fatherless", and applying it to Maglor is deliberately misleading. 
> 
> 4\. The river-daughters being able to turn into streams is all bunn's fault. But it's such a fun idea, I couldn't resist putting it in.
> 
> 5\. Tothû: a kind of dog bred by the Kindi to haul travois, the devices they use to shift items. The Kindi have developed a lifestyle which enables them to pack down the village and move it. (*silently fangirls over the Avari again*)
> 
> 6\. The Falathrim wear sarongs, which is a very practical design for a culture that's always in and out of the water. The Kindi are definitely going to adopt it.


	2. Forlond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Neniel and Gil-galad discuss Kindi history with a Shipwright.

The Lhûn lapped at the wood of the quay, as the Elves on it caught the rope flung from the ship, and pulled her in, alongside to a mooring post.

Gil-galad called out greetings to the Falathrim. Nelyar. Lindar. What was she supposed to call them? They were kinsmen, if you traced it back to Cuiviénen, both of the Third Clan, both Singers. But long separated. Did they wish to remember that, or not?

 _Only one way to find out,_ Ráca said to her, silently, from where she stood at Neniel's side. Like her, she had chosen a green tunic and brown leggings, the colours of the forest and the river. Gil-galad was dressed in tough, practical clothes as well, a faded, sleeveless linen tunic and breeches. His dangling, sparkling blue earring had been swapped for a plain silver stud. On his right arm, there was a long sword and a short lance, both slanting over his bicep. He was looking at her expectantly, as the gangplank lowered onto the quay. She nodded, gesturing for him to go ahead.

“Gil-galad!” one of the Elves said, hurrying forward, as Gil-galad walked down the gang-plank. He was dressed plainly, as most of the Elves on the quay were. “Welcome back!”

“Círdan,” Gil-galad replied warmly, pulling him into a hug. “It’s good to be back.”

Neniel paused, and then kept walking, looking closely. There were the high cheekbones that her Ataro had, and there was the same strong, almost square jaw, as well, although it was softened by the beard. But Círdan’s eyes were blue-grey as the Sea, rather than brown like her father's. She came to Gil-galad’s side, Ráca following her. Círdan’s eyes flicked over them both, and he looked startled, then curious, his eyebrows going up as he took in their faces.

She felt someone reaching out to her in thought, a soul-song like fierce, rolling breakers. Gil-galad. _Shall I introduce you?_

 _No,_ she pushed back. This particular job was hers. Even if it felt akin to standing her ground in the face of a charging, snarling wolf.

Neniel took a deep breath, and smiled at Círdan. “Hello.” First things first. “Do you prefer Círdan, or Nowë?”

Círdan’s startled look was replaced by a wry smile, as he folded his arms, glancing between her and Ráca. “I don’t mind either. And what should I call you?”

“My name is Neniel. I am the daughter of the Baranduin, daughter also of Nurwë. This is my cousin, Ráca, daughter of Salyë.”

After a long pause, Círdan spoke. “I am very glad to meet the daughters of my old friends, my kin. Come with me, and we’ll find somewhere for you to explain why you’re here.”

 _He claims us as kin._ She laughed aloud for the joy and sudden relief singing through her, and nodded at him. “I’d like nothing better.”

* * *

The roof of Círdan’s house was wood, and so were the floors, creaking reassuringly under their feet, as he led them into a hall. The ceiling curved overhead, arching gently, and the beams were salt-stained wood, and also curved. There were long wooden trestle tables set up along the length of the hall, and about a dozen Elves going about the hall, setting plates on the table. From further back in the house, Neniel smelled the distinctive scent of crab cooking, and smiled.

Círdan led them towards a door on the eastern side of the room, holding the door open, and she and Ráca filed in, Gil-galad following. Neniel felt a wave of unease, and then Ráca squeezed her shoulder, encouraging and comforting as she reached out to her. _Better to tell the story than let someone find out?_

Well. Yes, that was true.

“So,” Círdan said, as he sat down in an arm-chair. There was another arm-chair and a couch in the room, and they sat in a neat circle, with a half-mended net on the floor. Círdan picked it up and settled it on his lap, as he sat in his chair. “What happened for Nurwë and Salyë to change their minds? Why did they come west, in the end?”

It took more than one try to force the words out of her throat, as she sat down on the couch. It was low and gently curved, almost ship-like in its shape, but the fabric of it was soft. “We were fleeing.” She looked at Círdan. His eyes were sharp, but not surprised, not shocked, and his hands were still in his lap, not moving over the net. Why was he not shocked? “The Lake dried up. The waterfalls grew softer and fewer. The food less and less, and there were so many of us.” She took a breath, and Círdan’s eyes darkened, as he sensed the next words. “It was over a brook, in the end. One of the few good fishing grounds left. Our village fought, killed, lost, fled.”

Círdan’s eyes were distressed. “I had hoped…”

Understanding bloomed like a lily opening, as one of Ataro’s description of his old friend returned. _Far-sighted_. “You _knew_. You saw it.”

Círdan bowed his head. “Not the details. But I knew that staying was no guard against danger, and I told your father and your aunt as much.”

“When you argued with him,” she said, the details of what her father had – and even more crucially, had _not_ said – coming back to her. “After you decided to follow Thingol to Aman.”

“Yes.” His hands found one of hers, and one of Ráca’s, and squeezed. His eyes were still sad. “I’m sorry, lass. So, your family fled and came west. Why did we have no word of it?”

“And why did you keep moving to the Baranduin?” The question came from Gil-galad from where he sat in the arm-chair opposite Círdan. Gil-galad was leaning forward, his fingers steepled underneath his chin, and his eyes were narrowed. He did not look shocked, so much as analytical. “If you came West after the Sunderings, surely Lenwë of the Nandor was in the Vales of the Anduin by then? Why did you not join with him and his people?”

“I thought – did Denethor not speak of it?” Neniel asked, trying to piece the shards of the story together. “Yes, Lenwë was there, when we came west. We came searching for him. He did not wish for us to stay in his Vales.”

Gil-galad’s eyes narrowed further at that, while Círdan looked at her, his eyebrows rising a little. “I didn’t know that Nurwë and Lenwë had quarrelled as well. Nor that it had been so fierce.”

“They hadn’t. Not before the Sundering. But Lenwë…I don’t know,” Neniel said, shaking her head. “No. I do know. I felt the same way when Ataro told me the story. Like the world might split apart under my feet. I think Lenwë felt that if Ataro and Aunt Salyë left, then maybe, somehow…the story could be unsaid. That’s why we call ourselves Kindi, not Lindi or Green Elves. Lenwë made it very clear that we were not his people.”

Círdan sighed. “Yes, I can believe that of him. So, Nurwë and Salyë kept moving west. Did they intend to follow us to Aman?”

“I don’t know,” Neniel said. “I don’t think they knew, either, what they intended to do. They kept moving until some of us fell ill from eating something bad. By that point, they’d reached my mother’s river, so they stopped, and Ataro went to check the water. That’s when he met my mother.” There was something else, something about the whole picture that was bothering her, and she couldn’t think of it. It had to do with Gil-galad's question about Lenwë. What was it?

“So he too chose to stay for love,” Círdan sighed. A rueful smile twisted at the corner of his mouth. “Did he call it an enchantment or an ambush?”

“Definitely an ambush," Neniel said, absently, as she found the words for the question _._ “Did Denethor say _nothing_ of all of this? When he crossed over into Beleriand? He met with us when we were children.” She had seen twenty star-cycles, and Ráca had seen only five, when their aunt had introduced them to him, the son of her old friend Lenwë. He had been tall and graceful, kind and grave, his dark hair shining in the starlight. It was no wonder that her parents had spent the duration of Denethor’s stay with them making sure that she didn’t follow him everywhere.

Ráca was smirking at the memory, and Neniel resisted the urge to elbow her.

“I don’t know,” Círdan said. “He and Thingol were close, but I was busy at the western coast. I did not have much chance to speak with Denethor; we were scattered across such a distance.”

“I haven’t seen the story in any of the histories,” Gil-galad said, sounding thoughtful. “Not even a mention of your people by name. So perhaps Denethor did not speak of it. Perhaps he did, and the lore masters of the Sindar did not repeat it. Perhaps he did and the knowledge was lost at Doriath. There are many reasons why that knowledge could have been lost.” For just a moment, Gil-galad looked very tired, before his shoulders squared and he looked at Neniel. “Thank you for telling us.”

“It’s why we came,” she said. Ráca looked at her, raising an eyebrow, and Neniel reconsidered the words. Perhaps her reasoning _wasn’t_ very clear, on the surface of it. She tried again. “It’s not – it’s not _right._ Not right that we were sundered in the first place, but too late to change that. But it wouldn’t be right to _stay_ apart, if we can choose otherwise.”

The smile that Gil-galad wore now was different from the smiles she’d seen from him so far; his mouth turned up crooked at the corner, wry and amused. Then again, perhaps that wasn’t so mysterious, she realised, as she turned the thought over. She was not the only person in the room who wouldn’t exist, if it weren’t for the Sunderings.

Círdan was shaking his head at the remark, the rope of his hair swinging with the motion. “If you didn’t have Nurwë’s nose, that alone would have given you away.” His eyes turned thoughtful and a little cold. “So did you know? About what was happening in Beleriand?”

She swallowed, and nodded. “The rumour of it ran through the waters and the winds. Yes, we knew.” Círdan’s eyes closed at that, his face becoming still. “Are you furious?”

“Oh, a little angry,” Círdan said, his tone even and amiable, as his eyes opened. “You knew your kin to be in danger, and you did not come. That is not a neutral act.”

Those words – the heart of them, if not the phrases – she had heard a thousand times, in her own mind, as she asked her father why they would not go across the mountains. Each time, the answer, in her father’s eyes, wearied and sad: _you can’t save somebody else by drowning._ There were words on the tip of her tongue, defences: _we were so few, what use could we have been?_ _We were still recovering from our own wounds and our own hurt. We had our own fights! There were Orcs and danger here, too._

None of it was a lie.But the bulk of Morgoth's attention had been fixed towards the Noldor and the Sindar of Beleriand, when the Noldor returned to Middle-Earth. The Kindi’s change of fortune had gone hand-in-hand with the war of Beleriand. And her family had decided to keep the Ered Luin, and Ossiriand as a buffer between them and the worst of the danger, even if her mother had not created a Girdle.

“No, it’s not,” she agreed, meeting his eyes. But the action was done now, or not done, and it couldn’t be changed. Only regretted. “And for that, I would apologise. We thought we had good reasons. That doesn’t make it right.”

Círdan’s eyes softened, as he let out his breath slowly. Then he nodded. “Apology accepted.”

…Just like that?

He snorted, spreading callused, rough hands, and she knew from the wryness in his eyes that she had not veiled her thought well enough. “If I held onto grudges, I wouldn’t have made an alliance with the Noldor. Or still live by the coast. I have my own shadows, doubts and regrets, Nurweniel.”

She really, really should have figured that out, she thought, as she smiled at him. He was grinning at her, shaking his head, steel-grey hair swishing with the movement. “In that case, I have a message. Salyë and Nurwë send their greetings, their love, their apologies, and he wants you to know that the joke about how you didn’t know he loved the water _that_ much is far too tired for you to make it as well.”

Círdan laughed, and the sound was rough and merry, as he got to his feet, setting the net back down. “I’ll have to think of a new one, then!”

“In the mean-time, now that the story has been told, perhaps we should show them Forlond?” Gil-galad suggested.

Neniel smiled, as Círdan held the door open. “I’d like that.”

* * *

The breeze was sharp and salt-filled and the sand was soft underfoot. On the waves of the harbour, the fishing fleet was out, and their songs drifted over the water, soaring above the roar of the waves. The water was blue-green and clear, and the sand was white, unlike the pale yellow strands by the mouth of the Brown River. She could hear Ossë's song, but could not feel his presence in the waves, as the breakers roared and crashed in onto the sands, the water turning to white froth as it raced forward and then retreated. 

Several of the boats further out were empty, with no sailors aboard them. There was a splash in the water near one of the boats, and a net landing on the deck. The net was followed by a woman, pulling herself up on with an easy, strong motion. Her hair was plastered to her back, and she was almost completely naked, as she scrambled up onto the boat. She picked up a small knife, and the light shone and danced on the blade, as she opened the net and started shelling some kind of clam with the blade.

“Why didn’t she just cast the net from the boat?” Ráca wondered aloud, on her left, speaking the question that Neniel was thinking about at the moment. 

“Those are the _aearith_ ,” Gil-galad said. He stood at their right, his sandals dangling from his hands, as he looked out to the sea. “They dive to the oyster reefs below the surface for pearls. They start as young women, to learn the techniques for breathing. There were not many of them, when I was young, but there are many more of them now.”He smiled, pointing to one of the women surfacing, near a larger boat, with a deep blue sail and a pattern of stars arranged in a curling wave. Her hair was darkened by the water, and her catch looked enormous. “There’s my mother, Aearil. She’s one of the best at it.”

“Did she teach you?” Neniel asked.

Gil-galad nodded. “As soon as she could. Hard to teach in Hithlum, but after the Dagor Bragollach, when she and I went to the Falas, it was easier to teach.” He was making no motion to join his mother in the waves, and he was very still. She looked at him for a long moment, and then sat down on the white sand. The summer sunlight was warm above them, and the roar of the waves was comforting. Ráca and Gil-galad both followed suit.

“You still have questions, don’t you?” Neniel asked.

“They multiply every moment,” Gil-galad said. “For instance, I am now wondering how it is that you were secluded in the forest for so long, when you spoke of negotiating with the _iathrim_ for territory around the Lake several centuries ago. How it was that Elrond had to speak for you, rather than any of the _iathrim_.”

Neniel tilted her head to the side. “Do you keep in touch with them?”

Gil-galad nodded. “Mostly with Galadriel and Celeborn. Galadriel mentioned when they were settling around the Lake that they had met with a group of Avari, and that they were friendly and welcoming. I was curious about that, but we were still working on building Mithlond at the time, and ships to take the Edain to the Land of Gift. We were a little busy.”

“I can imagine,” Neniel said.

“So why did you give them territory up around the Lake? Rather than closer to your people?”

Neniel looked at him. _He wants good relationships with the Kindi and with the iathrim. He ought to know what he is dealing with_. “They’re our cousins, of a sort. Certainly our kinsmen. But not all of them are willing to say as much. They came to meet with us, and we offered them our hospitality. When they looked at our buildings, at our village…Galadriel and Celeborn were courteous, but others in the party, they pitied us. Thought us simple, quaint, childish.”

Gil-galad grimaced. “ _Ai.”_

“Yes. Most of them didn’t say as much – well, except for one of the younger Elves – but they didn’t need to. Their faces did the talking for them.” She jerked her thumb east, back up the course of the Lhûn. “Having seen Mithlond, I understand it a bit better. Why they were so shocked. But by the river, my parents made a life for themselves, and my people learned that we were more than survivors of war and famine and flight. And when the _iathrim_  spoke to us as though they were  _stooping_ to do it–” Her voice was turning icy with remembered anger, and Ráca was reaching out urgently to her in thought. Neniel bit down on her lip. “Apologies. I did not realise I was speaking so harshly.”

“I accept none of them,” Gil-galad said, a steady, undaunted look in his eyes. “If it helps, I understand. Some of the host of the Valar could be very determinedly sympathetic, at times. Almost unwilling to admit that there had ever been joy in Beleriand, even under the Shadow.” The twist to his mouth suggested a great deal about how he’d felt about that, even more than his words did.

Neniel reached out and squeezed Gil-galad’s shoulder gently. “Thank you. That does help, a bit.” He smiled. She sighed, looking out to the waves. The song of the Falathrim had continued unabated, and the _aearith_ were singing too, now, as they scooped pearls up out of the oysters. “At least Círdan is willing to admit that we’re kin.”

“Did you think that he wouldn’t?”

“My father knew him thousands of years ago,” she said. Her hand went to Maglor's charm, sitting at her throat. “People do change.”

“So they do,” Gil-galad said. “So they do. Are you sending a message back to your family soon, to let them know how it went?”

She rubbed at her forehead. “I have to figure that out. The problem of sending messages back, I mean. I’m the fastest runner among our people, but even for me, it’d take a while to get it back to them. At least two weeks, to run there and back.”

“You’re not leaving me in charge to go haring back home,” Ráca said, poking her in the ribs once in warning. Neniel wrinkled her nose at her. "Why can't you speak through the water?"

"Because it's not sustainable. If you and I send a message back home through the water, then Regen will want to send a message. Then Eirien and Saelo will want to talk to her family, and probably his as well. Then Mistinda will get word of it, and she'll want to send word to her children. Then everybody else will get word of it, assuming they hadn't heard already. I don't want to spend the summer doing nothing but holding the mirror in place!" 

Gil-galad laughed.“As intriguing as this mirror sounds, I have to agree with Ráca. There has to be a way that doesn't involve you running back to the Baranduin. Why not send a bird to your father, and save yourself the effort?”

Neniel blinked. “…Send a bird?”

Gil-galad stood and offered her a hand up. “Come on. Let me show you something.”

Neniel took his hand, and he pulled her up to her feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Yes, Gil-galad has a tattoo as well. I think tattooing is a tradition of the Falathrim, as well as a tradition of the Kindi and the Nandor.
> 
> 2\. The Nelyar were the Third Clan of the Elves, and they were the ancestors of the Sindar of the Falas, the Sindar of Doriath, the Nandor. In this version, they are also the progenitors of the Kindi. The story of Cuiviénen suggests somewhere that one of the ways the Three Fathers chose their companions was based on physical resemblance to themselves and to each other, which is why Círdan notes the physical resemblance between Neniel and Ráca, Nurwë and Salyë. 
> 
> 3\. Lindar was one of the earliest names that the Third Clan gave themselves, after their love of song and music. 
> 
> 4\. Círdan's gift of foresight spurs him to give Gandalf Narya, the Ring of Fire, when Gandalf comes to Middle-Earth. 
> 
> 5\. 'Lindi' is the name that the Nandor use for themselves. 'Laiquendi', meaning Green Elves, is a Quenya term, and 'Nandor' is also Quenya, meaning 'those who turned back.' Lenwë was the first leader of the Nandor, and he settled in the Vales of the Andean, never following Thingol as far as Beleriand. In the end, it was his son Denethor who would lead some of the Nandor across the Blue Mountains into Ossiriand, and into an alliance with Thingol.
> 
> 6\. Side note: Denethor was sufficiently charismatic that the Lindi never had another King. I'll bet all the Elflings had crushes on him.
> 
> 7\. Aearith: "sea women." Based off the ama divers of Japan.
> 
> 8\. I go with Gil-galad as the biological son of Fingon. He sends Gil-galad to the Havens after the Dagor Bragollach partially for safety, but also because he has kin there from his mother's side.


	3. New Things Fair and Wonderful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Maglor sings up illusions, Celebrimbor and Glasseth get a project, and Neniel checks in on her sister. 
> 
> Or, how projects in the lands of weeping and war can still be quite a lot of fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Profuse thanks to bunn for the beta. (Everybody, bunn's beta-ing this now. I'm so excited.)

Maglor stood back and regarded their work. Tauren’s gift to him for the winter solstice had been an axe and a carving knife, and Elrond and Maglor had been using both to good effect over the past two days, as they hollowed the fallen trunk of a linden tree into something like a canoe. There was no loom to weave a sail. Instead, they had carved one of the branches into a paddle. It would not be easy, but Maglor would be able to cross the Lhûn as he pleased, if it worked.

The thought was a cheerful one, and it matched the day. There was a thin, lovely mist on the Lhûn. The water was shining cold, clear blue against the pale sandy, bank, and the leaves of the trees were shining green under the pale sunlight of the early morning. Elrond’s horse was some distance away, cropping at the sweet grass behind them, and Celenem the hound was nosing around the canoe.

Maglor squatted to check the length of the interior. Spacious enough that it should hold his pack, himself, and Celenem. Now, would it be durable enough?

“You’re not going to go haring off to Himling, or somewhere else, are you?”

That question was more urgent than determining how durable the craft was, so Maglor stood up.

“No,” he said, turning to face Elrond. Elrond looked calm enough, but there was an undercurrent of worry to his voice. Maglor couldn’t blame him, given the circumstances. He set a hand on Elrond’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “I’m not planning on that, or endless lamentation, or anything like that. But I am curious to see if anything remains of Belegost. If not, then I’ll contact you by the mirror-song and start paddling back south.”

“And if something does remain?”

Maglor pursed his lips. “I don’t know. I might greet them, or I might not. Either way, I’ll tell you about it.”

Elrond’s shoulders relaxed underneath Maglor’s hand, and he smiled. Then he knelt to rub behind Celenem’s ears, as Celenem nuzzled against his legs. “If you paddle north-east, you should avoid most of the fishing fleet. Harlond is mostly orchards and the Lhûn dips towards the south in a little bowl there, like a miniature bay, so their fishermen rarely venture out into the Gulf.”

“Thank you for the advice,” Maglor said. “Although there might be one thing we can do to make it even less risky, before you go. What do Falathrim boats look like these days?”

Elrond gave him a long, considering look, and then the image of one of the boats shone on the surface of his mind. A little dinghy, with a pale green sail that was embroidered to show a curling wave, with a silver, crescent moon above it. Maglor nodded, and began to sing under his breath, sliding the harp out of his bag and picking out a tune on it.

A few minutes later, a dinghy with a pale yellow sail stood there on the river-bank, with silver rain-drops embroidered on it. Elrond laughed. “No stars?”

“Iarwain ben-Adar is old as the leaves, and the trees, and about as creaky,” Maglor said, feeling a grin tug at his mouth. “Probably as old as the stars as well. And yet, I don’t know that he’d have a sail with stars on it. Rain-drops seem more in character, for him.”

Elrond’s smile faded a little. “I don’t think she meant to…”

“No, of course she didn’t,” Maglor agreed, picking the paddle up and studying it so that Elrond would not be able to see his face right now. The idea of Neniel _intending_ to hurt him was ridiculous. But intentions and actions could be very far removed from each other. Who knew that better than him? “She was right. It’s easier to spread a rumour than keep a secret, and nobody would think of me, given that name. I am many things, but not Unbegotten.”

Elrond’s smile turned wryer. “Who says that Iarwain is, either? I think Arda itself could be described as Eldest and Fatherless.”

Maglor laughed. “A fascinating alternative! Iarwain ben-Adar, an embodied spirit of the land…it’s not a bad idea. Certainly it would keep people confused.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Elrond said, glancing up at the sun. His smile shrank again, and Maglor braced himself for the words. “It’ll be midsummer, soon. I’ll have to go back to Gil-galad and Mithlond.”

“Yes, I know,” Maglor said. He set the paddle down, and pulled the canoe up into the shade. “But do you have time for a late breakfast before you go?”

Elrond’s smile was warm, sweet, and just a little sad. “I’d be delighted.”

* * *

Gil-galad had said that prying Celebrimbor away from his work was not done lightly, and Neniel had planned her ambush accordingly. She had woken up with the dawn, dressed quickly, and gone to sit outside his work-shop, leaning back against the wall and watching as the sun came up, waiting until Celebrimbor stood in front of her, a quizzical look on his face. Then she had taken him down the street until they stood outside Glasseth’s work-shop, and together they had waited for Glasseth to show up as well. If either cousin had been dismayed by the ambush, neither of them had shown it. But that probably came from both of them having survived the War of Wrath.

Now they sat on the rim of the fountain outside of Glasseth’s workshop, the sunlight shining down on them and making the fog off the Lhûn dissipate. Behind them, the fountain was chuckling happily, singing of moss and sunlight.

“You can create a mirror with a song?” Celebrimbor asked, his eyes narrowed in thought. Beside him, Glasseth wore a matching expression.

Neniel nodded. “Yes. Well, sort of. I used it when I was travelling away from home, to keep in touch with my family. It uses water the way the Noldor use glass. Gil-galad said it reminded him of seeing stones, and that you would like to see it.”

“I certainly would!” Celebrimbor said, nodding. “There aren’t many of those seeing stones left, in Middle-Earth. Only a few survived the War of Wrath, and we don’t know how to make them, anymore.” He raised his eyebrows, as though a thought had suddenly occurred to him. “The stones let us look to the past, as well as across great distances. Can you do the same thing with the water?”

“Look into the past?” Neniel asked, her forehead wrinkling as she thought about it. “I…I don’t know. The song works to speak to the other waters, because all water is connected by Ulmo’s grace. My mother remembers the shape and the history of the land, so perhaps, I could look back to the Starlight Years, looking in the water of the Baranduin. But I’ve been thinking. I don’t want to have to hold the mirror in place for all my people, or sing the charm every time my people want to talk to their families back home. It’d be easier if I could use a particular space for it, sing the charm into it and set a stasis on it, like we do for the waterproof cloths we make.” She patted the stone of the fountain underneath her, glancing at Glasseth. “Really, the fountain would be ideal. That’s why I thought I’d talk to you about it, Glasseth. But if it would be too distracting–”

“Oh, _that’s_ why you pulled me out of my workshop!” Glasseth said, laughing. She leaned backwards and dangled her fingers in the water, then flicked droplets in Neniel’s direction. “I wondered. Well, you’re welcome to use the fountain, as far as I’m concerned. It’s not like it belongs to me! It wouldn’t be very private, though.”

Neniel laughed back. “My people worry less about privacy. It comes from living in a village. Although...Gil-galad said the seeing stones could be awakened with a word?”

Celebrimbor shook his head. “Not exactly. There was a master word, yes, but it was designed to protect it, so that the Enemy would not have access. The word, once spoken, would _unveil_ the seeing stone, and then it would be up to the person using it to direct their thoughts. The stones were always awake and looking and seeing. It was part of the stone’s design.”

Neniel thought about that for a moment, dangling her fingers in the water. “Did it require much power to use?”

Celebrimbor shook his head. “No, the stones themselves were filled with the power needed. But it required a great deal of focus and concentration, and there were so few of them that they were reserved for the use of captains and generals. But many of them were lost when the strongholds of Beleriand fell.”

“So,” she said, splashing the water again, as she thought. If the fountain itself could hold the power, the way the cloth held the enchantment to keep the rains off. “It could work.” But Glasseth was right; the fountain was not private, and some conversations would have to be. She blinked, thinking of the ice bowl she had used to speak with Maglor. “How big were the seeing stones?”

Celebrimbor cocked his head to the side. He cupped his hands together into a small circle. “As small as this–” the hands extended out, mimicking a circle almost twice the width of somebody’s head– “or as large as this. It depended on what purpose the stone was for.” A brief hesitation, before he continued to speak. “My father made some to stay in the towers and fortresses, the centres of command, but he made a few small ones for the field. Not enough, in the end.”

She nodded, and then blinked, as she remembered. “It’s a good point that you made, Glasseth, about privacy. Last week, I went down the river to speak to somebody, and I made a little bowl of ice and filled it with water. I melted it back and returned it into the river, after I used it to hold the mirror. But a wooden bowl or a ceramic bowl would work, too. But then you’d still have to sing the full song into the water bowl, each time, and not everybody can persuade the water like that–”

“Only if you emptied the container of water, though,” Glasseth interrupted, frowning. “If I understand you correctly.”

Neniel blinked. “But how would it stay full? If you put it in a pack or carried it in one hand, or even if somebody just bumped into you, then the water would just spill out.”

“But you can _cork_ a bottle,” Glasseth said, her words coming quickly now, tumbling over each other as she got up and jerked her thumb at the workshop behind them. “If you had, had a bowl of some kind, and you half-filled it, but then you set something over it, a transparent cover–”

“Like a window pane,” Celebrimbor said, already jumping off the fountain to walk into Glasseth’s work-shop. Neniel followed the cousins in, closing the door behind them. Celebrimbor went to a cabinet and pulled a sketchbook out, setting it on the bench. Glasseth slid a small steel canister across to him.

“Setting glass over it,” Glasseth said. “Over the water. That could work, if you made the vessel around the pane. But what would you use to hold the water? Glass again?”

Celebrimbor made a noise in the back of his throat, as he unscrewed the lid of the canister and dipped the stick he was holding into the canister. No, not a stick. A pen. He responded as he began to scribble. “Hmm. Could be too fragile? You wouldn’t try and travel with your perfumes.”

“I wouldn’t like to do it. But it’s doable. You’d just have to wrap the bottles in cloth before you crate them.” Glasseth drummed her fingers on the table. “You could create some kind of fabric case, to cushion the vessel. But – no, I see your point. It still probably wouldn’t hold together if it was dropped. Ceramic, then? Or stone?”

“I’m better with stone than ceramic,” Celebrimbor said. “Besides, if glass is too fragile, I’m sure most ceramics will be equally unsuitable.” His pen moved quickly along the page, sketching a deeply curved bowl, and a wavy line halfway up the bowl. “Does the volume of water affect the quality of the mirror?”

Neniel shook her head, and then spoke, when neither cousin looked up from the sketchbook. “No. I’ve used the song with a bowl I could hold in one hand, with cooking pots, with streams. It’s not the amount of water that makes a difference.”

“Distance?”

“Hm. Once, I went over to the other side of the mountains to the east. That’s as far as I’ve ever gone, and I could still speak to my family. It was harder to use than it normally is. I didn’t try to go any further east than that, so I’m not sure how using it could have been affected. I think it still would have worked, but it would have been harder.”

Celebrimbor stared down at the design, and at last, he gave a nod. “Two prototypes, at first, I think. One in quartz, one in marble.” He glanced at Glasseth, his lips quirking up at the corners. “You’ve worked with marble more recently than I have. Do you want to help?”

Glasseth smiled back at him. “I’ve no urgent projects. Everything is steeping for the next two weeks. You?”

“The _uruitamen_ are all ready for the festival,” Celebrimbor said. He glanced at Neniel. “Can you give us a couple of weeks? It shouldn’t take much longer than that.”

Neniel stood, nodded and smiled at both of them. “It’s not exactly urgent.” Not when compared to finding food for the night, anyway. There was also the part where technically, she had not asked Celebrimbor and Glasseth to make this, but his eyes were already drifting back to the notebook. He looked astonishingly like Tauren, when she had an idea. “Can I bring you some food in a few hours? I’m no craftsman, but that, I can do.”

* * *

She had caught some fish and cooked it, and then delivered to Celebrimbor and Glasseth, and found both of them still so deeply engrossed in the project that a charging boar would probably not remove them from it. That done, Neniel walked back down the Street of Ravens, turning left into the main road that ran through Mithlond, humming a song that Regen had picked up from the kennels, and listening to the flow of the Lhûn. Lhûn was singing, too, about the strength of summer, about everything fierce and green and growing along her banks, and Neniel smiled, as she paused at the Street of Written Memory. The buildings at the northern and southern end had pillars shaped like tall scrolls to indicate the presence of Mithlond’s great library that Gil-galad had spent fifty years building, or so it was said. She reached out to Ráca in thought, feeling until she heard Ráca’s _faelin_ like a pipe trilling, bright and curious and lively. She was sitting with a scribe that morning, and telling him their history as Salyë and Nurwë had taught them both as children, and was currently up to the argument between Nurwë and Lenwë, in the Vales of the Anduin.

She saw movement in the corner of her eye; a dark-haired, grey-eyed Elf, walking down the corner building, the Hall of Histories directly towards her. “Lady Neniel?”

She turned to face him. He was definitely one of the Noldor with that colouring, but she couldn’t place him beyond that. And what was this ‘lady’ business? “Yes?”

“The King asked me if you would attend him at your earliest convenience,” the Elf said. “To speak of organising the midsummer festival.”

She _had_ been meaning to speak to Gil-galad about that, and it seemed he’d had the same thought. Well, it was not as though Ráca couldn’t tell the story herself. She’d better check on Regen first, though.

She nodded at the Elf, and smiled as she finally placed him. One of Gil-galad’s lieutenants, but not one of his Falathrim cousins. “I need to check on my sister, but I will be along shortly. Where should I find him?”

The Elf’s disapproval at her words was written in the twist of his mouth, the way his eyebrows drew together. “The King is in his study at the moment.”

“Thank you very much. Please tell him that I’ll be there within the hour,” Neniel said, since it seemed unlikely that the Noldo would be satisfied with anything less than a precise answer. The disapproval on the Elf’s face remained, but he nodded stiffly and walked off.

When he had turned out of the street and was almost certainly beyond earshot, Neniel let out a sigh, and reached out to her cousin in thought, informing her of the change of plans. Then she jogged south and east, towards the gate, working her way through the streets. There was music coming from some of the buildings, the halls of the weavers, and the workshops, songs in Sindarin, Quenya, and a few snatches of Kindi, the rhythms clashing and fighting with each other.

The stables of Mithlond were between the eastern and southern gates, with a gate in the stone designed to let the horses in when the ground turned muddy. So Regen said, anyway. The air smelled different, something warm and animal that must be the horses, but then, also the smell of grass on the other side of the walls, and underneath it the cool smell of chalky stone that was present in all of Mithlond.

She reached out to her sister in thought, and received a greeting in reply that indicated Regen was very distracted. She walked underneath the central archway of the stable. It was divided into compartments, she noted, almost like storing ingredients back in the longhouses, but on a bigger scale. Each compartment held a horse. About four compartments along, she glanced over and found Regen. Beside her, there was a Noldo, who was kneeling in front of the horse and carefully bending one of its forelegs back. Regen was kneeling, too, looking at the hoof with an intent look on her face, her head almost beneath the horse’s belly. Neniel held her breath, until Regen’s eyes narrowed and she said: “Oh, I see it. Like a shape of a bird’s wings, when they’re landing.”

“You could just call it a triangle,” the Noldo said, smiling as he lowered the hoof. “It would be quicker.” Regen shifted back and got to her feet, and Neniel let her breath out. That hoof looked dangerous.

“Is everything alright?” Regen asked, as she looked at Neniel. Her brows had abruptly lowered into a worried frown, the same one that their Ataro wore.

Neniel smiled as reassuringly as she could, as she leaned on the door of the compartment. “Oh, yes. I just wanted to come and see how you were getting on here.” She glanced at the Noldo, and then raised her eyebrows at her sister in a gentle prompt.

Regen looked puzzled for a moment, and then caught the hint. “Oh! Varyar, this is my eldest sister, Neniel. Neniel, this is Varyar of the people of Celebrimbor.” Neniel studied the Noldo, as he gave a short, shallow bow, and came to the other side of the door. He had brown hair, rather than the usual black, and his eyes were grey, but without the Treelight that shone in Celebrimbor’s or Maglor’s. Born after the Darkening, then.

“I’m very pleased to meet you,” Neniel said, holding her hand out, and Varyar shook it. “How long have you been working with the horses?”

“All my life,” Varyar said, undoing the latch of the door, and Neniel stepped back as he and Regen stepped out into the corridor. “I was born in Beleriand, at Himring, and I’ve worked with horses ever since I was old enough to choose something to do. Regen says that you don’t use them?”

Neniel blinked at the abrupt shift of topic, and then shook her head, as she looked back into the compartment at the horse. “They’re grazing animals, aren’t they? I think our forest isn’t right for them. I saw a herd of them once, when I was going up north to Lake Nenuial, though. They were very beautiful.” Regen was twitching impatiently, the way she did when she had something to say, but knew that she would be scolded for interrupting. Neniel smiled at her again, and slung an arm around her shoulders. “Spit it out, before you melt.”

Regen’s answering grin shone like starlight, as she jerked her thumb at Varyar. “He’s agreed to it! We’re going to try breeding a litter of the hounds together! Just one to start with, but I think there will be more after that.”

Neniel laughed, both at Regen’s joy, and the wry smile painting itself across Varyar’s face. “Considering how you badgered our parents to let you come here, I’m not surprised. Varyar, you have my sympathy. So what’s the goal?”

“Well, our hounds are much faster,” Varyar said, looking proud as he said it. Regen glanced up at him, and poked out her tongue. Varyar grinned at her, and ruffled her hair. Neniel smiled at the sight. It was good to see that Regen had made at a friend, in this new city. “Regen wants to see if we can give some of their speed to your wolf-hounds.”

“Do you think the chances are good?”

Regen gave a confident nod, while Varyar waggled his hand, in the same gesture she had seen Maglor use a thousand times: _maybe, maybe not. Yes, and no._ “Cross-breeding isn’t straightforward. But it’s worth a go.”

Neniel smiled, and hugged Regen again. “Good, I’m glad–” she broke off, hearing the sound of hooves approaching, clipping against the stone. Varyar gestured for them to step back against doors of the compartments, as Elrond came in, leading his horse down the stony corridor of the stable, and into one of the empty compartments.

“Hello, everyone! I wasn’t expecting a welcoming committee!” Elrond said, sounding very cheerful from inside the compartment.

“And we weren’t expecting you!” Neniel returned, grinning at him. Elrond gave her a half-questioning look, and she smiled, shaking her head, and reached for him in thought. _You can tell me later, if you want to._ Elrond nodded once. “I just came to check on Regen, and see that everything was alright.”

“I’m sure if the stables still hadn’t been standing, you would have heard,” Elrond laughed, taking the leather harness off the horse’s head.

“Very probably,” Neniel agreed. “How was the hunting?”

Elrond smiled. “Some very nice fish and deer, in the end, and a very pleasant holiday in the forest. It took an immense amount of willpower to make me come back. But I didn’t want to miss the midsummer festival, of course.”

 _Ah._ Yes, she still had to attend to that.

“An excellent reason to return,” she said, stepping back from the door, and turning to walk away. “Well, I’d best keeping moving, everybody. Oh, and Regen?”

“Yes?”

“Be _careful_ ,” Neniel said firmly, glancing back over her shoulder as she walked towards the stable door. “Those hooves look painful.” Regen gave an outraged cry behind her, and Neniel resisted the urge to turn around and argue the point further. There was no point in getting Regen’s hackles up.

“Of all the – _I’m_ the one who has to be careful?”

…No point in getting Regen’s hackles up any _more_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes and Translations: 
> 
> 1\. Uruitamen: Quenya, ‘fireworks.’ My invention. Not fireworks themselves, obviously, but the word. 
> 
> 2\. Glasseth and Celebrimbor both learned stonework with their grandmother. 
> 
> 3\. Faelin: Kindi, ‘soul-song.’ The distinctive melody of a person, and the way that the Kindi perceive the presence of spirits in mind-speech.
> 
> 4\. I think the Elf who hails Neniel and gives Gil-galad’s message probably used to work for Turgon, and has a very...etiquette-oriented view of the world. Hence calling Neniel ‘Lady’, and being appalled when she doesn’t immediately head towards the audience. Neniel, of course, is assuming that ‘at your earliest convenience’ is meant literally, rather than being any sort of code.
> 
> 5\. That said, Gil-galad in this ‘verse is half-Falathrim, and they’re a bit more laid-back than the Noldor as a rule. So he’s probably not too worried either. 
> 
> 6\. I don’t think Regen’s education in Sindarin extended to geometry. Hence the circumlocution, rather than just saying ‘the triangle’, or the ‘v’ shape. Of course, I’m not sure what the Elvish term for a ‘v’ shape would be, considering they have tengwar and Cirth rather than the Latin alphabet.
> 
> 7\. Varyar is one of bunn’s OCs from Quenta Narquelion, and the Return to Aman series. I may have Quillified him slightly, bunn. My apologies! 
> 
> 8\. Title is taken from the sixth chapter of the Silmarillion: 'In those days [the Years of the Trees, during Melkor's captivity], the Eldar became full-grown in stature of body and mind, and the Noldor advanced ever in skill and knowledge; and the long years were filled with their joyful labours, in which many new things fair and wonderful were devised.'


	4. The Dwarves of Yore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maglor meets a party of Dwarves and journeys to Belegost.

 

Maglor hauled the canoe up onto the northern bank, and sat down beside it. It had taken him the better part of the day to get across the Lhûn, fighting against the west-flowing currents to go north-east, as Elrond had recommended. His hands were blistered from the paddle. Stupid of him, really. He should have sanded it more carefully before he left the southern bank.

Celenem lapped greedily at the water, before he lifted his head. He turned, trotted to Maglor and pawed at his knee. Maglor slid himself further down the bank to dangle his hands in the water, as Celenem snuffled at him, his nose cold and wet against Maglor’s cheek.

“Soon,” Maglor told him. “Soon.”

The hound whined, but left off nuzzling him after one last lick, splashing in the shallows of the water. He had been very still on the canoe, and done nothing to rock the boat at all. But considering that Regen had trained him, that was unsurprising. The combination of discipline, humour and patience that Dînen and Nurwë had raised her on had flowed into how she trained the hounds. The results spoke for themselves.

The water was cold; a few more minutes, and he would be able to sing the blisters closed and into calluses.

How was Regen doing? The last Neniel had mentioned of her, she’d found the stables and the kennels, and was spending a great deal of time there. Perhaps she’d run into Varyar?

The thought was not a very comfortable one. Varyar had followed the sons of Fëanor to Doriath, and to the Havens after that. If Maglor and Maedhros had decided to lead their people against the host of the Valar, he would have followed them there too. Probably.

At least Varyar had been spared that final raid on the Silmarils, and slaying Finarfin’s guards. He must still be alive; Elrond would have told him if something had happened to Varyar, or to any of the last remnant of the people of the Gap, the March, and East Beleriand.

Varyar and the others who had followed Maedhros’ banner probably did not even know that Maedhros had thrown himself into the lava, with the Silmaril in hand. What had they thought of their disappeared lords, these past five hundred odd years?

That they were free from their old allegiances? Unlikely. Elrond had said that most of them were still following Celebrimbor. Some were following Glasseth, but not many; maybe fifteen, all up, from Caranthir’s lands in Thargelion, who had followed Maedhros after the death of their lord. But the rest were following Celebrimbor, who still wore the star of the House of Fëanor and put it on whatever he made. Elrond had mentioned that, during his visit.

So they were still loyal. After centuries of war and loss and horror after horror.

He could almost hear Elrond sighing now, and shaking his head. _Give Morgoth some credit. You weren’t the only source of death and horror in Beleriand._

True. As undeniable a truth that the House of Fëanor had lost the right to such loyalty, even as Maglor and his brother had lost the right to touch their father’s work.

Claws scraped at his arm, and Celenem licked at his cheek and ear, bringing Maglor out of his thoughts abruptly. He sat up, shaking the water off his numb hands, and looked at Celenem. His ears were pricked and alert, and as he wagged his tail, the brown fur glinted in the sunlight .

“Yes, alright,” Maglor said, in the face of Celenem’s doggy smile, scrubbing at his cheek with his sleeve. “I’ll cheer up.” He glanced up at the sky. Early afternoon. Enough time to gather wood, if they were going to build a fire. But would it attract attention?

Better to find out sooner, rather than later.

He whistled and slung the pack onto his back, as he got to his feet. “Come on, Celenem. No more brooding. We’re going for a walk.”

Celenem’s ears pricked up in approval, as he fell into a trot at Maglor’s heel.

* * *

 

A fire would not draw an undue amount of attention, if he went even a little further north. The trees were not quite like the great, thick wood that he and Neniel had walked through last year; the trees were sparser and not so tall. But the late afternoon sunlight dappled across the forest floor, sifting through the canopies of oak and beech, and there was surely enough cover that a fire would not be very visible. The land had mended very well, since the fall of Belegost and Nogrod.

Celenem snuffled at something, and Maglor glanced down at him, and paused.

_I didn’t hear horses…_

He walked forward a little, and found the tracks. A pony, not a horse, and ridden, not riderless. He followed it north, on a meandering path through the trees, and found more hoof-marks. A party of riders, at least six or seven. No tall horses at all, that he could see. Heading north.

He walked along for a little while further, following the tracks, and then found the camp-site. The foot-prints deeply embedded in the forest floor confirmed the suspicion that had been forming in the back of his mind. Small, squarish prints, with nails interrupting the shape on each side and the cropped grass from where the ponies had been let loose to graze. The feet were far too small to belong to an adult Elf or Man, and it was too deeply embedded in the grass to belong to a child from either Kindred.

There was a party of Dwarves, riding north towards Belegost.

Weren’t they going the wrong way? He thought that Belegost had been to the north-east from this point. Although it was so hard to tell, given the way the land had changed. And he and Maedhros had left Belegost some years before its fall. It was entirely likely that the Dwarves knew the route better than he did.

Well. That really only left one option. It was a good thing that he’d packed dried meat and fruit for the journey across the Gulf.

He whistled to the hound. “Come on, Celenem. Let’s move.”

* * *

 

The Dwarves were not hurrying on their journey. Part of that was travelling in a group, and the need to keep each other in sight; but even with that accounted for, they could not have been forcing the pace. And so, two days later, Maglor caught up to them, as they came out of the wood and led their ponies to drink at a stream. Seven dwarves, all up, each with a pony, and all seemed remarkably young.

Celenem growled, a long, deep sound in his throat, and Maglor let his hand fall onto the dog’s shoulders. “I see them. Hush.”

Warning delivered, the dog’s hackles slowly lowered, and Maglor considered the situation.

Relations between the Elves and the Dwarves, with the exception of the friendship between the House of Azaghâl and the House of Fëanor, had not been ever more than politely distant, after the death of Thingol by Dwarves of Nogrod. If a wandering Kinslayer spoke to a group of young Dwarves, it would probably cause no great concern for Gil-galad.

But on the other hand, it did seem something of a shame. Neniel had crafted such an interesting alias, one that could be interpreted in so many ways. What good was an alias that was never used?

The Dwarves had not seen him yet. They were occupied with letting the ponies drink, and having a noisy argument in Khuzdul, so quick and angry that Maglor could not catch more than one word in ten. Judging by how red in the face one of them was getting underneath his beard, it was rather heated. In fact, if it continued any further, one of them was likely to storm off. Their journey would probably go a lot quicker if somebody intervened now. Dwarves could be counted on to close ranks, and to only show internal ructions to an outsider with extreme reluctance.

“Good morning!” Maglor called out in Sindarin, his voice pitched to carry. He didn’t think that Dwarves had come to like Elves and Men speaking Khuzdul anymore in the intervening years. He walked forward from the tree-line and came downstream to greet the Dwarves. As he had predicted, they were already breaking off from that argument, looking in his direction. They were armed; belt-knives, long-hafted walking axes, pick-axes. A mining expedition, then?

One of them was frowning, and a short-fingered, broad hand came up to stroke through a thin beard. “Good morning?” A woman of the Dwarves, from the sound of it; the pitch and timbre was both lighter than he’d been expecting. The hesitance with which she spoke the Sindarin was unexpected.

It seemed that somebody would have to pretend to be the confident one, in this interaction, and it might be him. Maglor smiled and gave a short bow. “Iarwain ben-Adar, at your service!”

Beside him, Celenem was looking warily at the Dwarves. They were looking back, and regarding Celenem with less suspicion than Maglor. So that was something, at least.

The woman frowned at him, and bowed in return, one hand dropping from holding her pony’s reins, to the dagger that she wore at her belt. Not a threatening reaction; more of an unconscious reflex. “Katur of the Broadbeams, at your service and your family’s,” she replied. The words were spoken slowly, as though she was reaching for the words, or as though she was thinking as she spoke. Another of the Dwarves spoke rapidly in Khuzdul, his blue eyes narrowing as he spoke. _What’s he doing here?_

Katur threw the speaker an exasperated look, and then, still stroking her beard, began to speak again. “What is your business here today?”

“Nothing in particular,” Maglor said, smiling at her, “and everything, in general.” That made Katur’s beard twitch, as though the words exasperated her. “The forest spoke–” figuratively speaking, anyway – “of the party of Dwarves that was riding north, towards fallen Belegost. I was curious at that, so Celenem and I came to investigate.” He scratched behind Celenem’s ears as he spoke.

“The forest spoke to you?” Katur repeated. “That legend is true, then?”

Maglor raised his eyebrows at her. “Stone speaks to the Dwarves. Why should the forest not speak to the Elves?” She was looking truly disconcerted, and he relented. “Not to mention that it’s difficult to bring a party of ponies through an area without them leaving tracks.” She looked faintly embarrassed by that, but the set of her shoulders had relaxed. “So what takes you north towards the ruins?”

“The ruins themselves,” she said, and from the change in her tone, she seemed to have come to a decision. “We’ve come to look at the ruins and explore them. See if there’s a particular ore still in the rock.”

“I see.” Well, the plan had been to go north towards Belegost anyway. And considering what had happened to the ruins of Doriath, going there alone when he could go with others instead would be needlessly foolish. “Would you allow me to come with you? I, too, would like to see the ruins of Belegost.”

Katur sighed, tugging on her beard. “We do not know if we will continue north towards the ruins, or turn back.”

“Oh?”

A fierce scowl from Blue Eyes, until Katur gave him a quelling look. No visible protests from the other Dwarves; apparently, they were content to follow Katur’s lead. Katur spoke again. “We do not know if we will continue north towards the ruins. We are running low on provisions, and we are…unfamiliar with these woods.”

That fit. The cities of the Dwarves had always been given more towards importing their food, and focussing on making, rather than on hunting or on agriculture. And if they were young, and had not made the journey before, miscalculating the rations was an easy mistake to make.

“A conundrum,” Maglor said, keeping his voice and face very grave. “Are you in a hurry?”

Katur’s smile was grim behind her black beard. “No. All of us are going to be up to our eyes in trouble by the time we return home. It doesn’t make much of a difference if we go back quickly.”

So his hunch had been correct. Best not to dwell on that, overmuch; the other Dwarves were already looking sour at the way that she had admitted to the weakness.

“Celenem is an excellent hound,” Maglor said, reaching down to scratch behind Celenem’s ears again. “And I have no small experience in foraging. If you would allow me to accompany you to Belegost, I would happily lend my efforts to bolstering your supplies.”

Katur’s smile was not grim at all anymore. But some of her party were looking distinctly ill at ease.

Well, that was his cue, then.

Maglor gave a bow, and then walked further upstream, staying within their lines of sight, but walking out of earshot. The offer had been made, and now, the polite thing was to give the Dwarves enough privacy to argue about it. They would come and find him, when they had made their decision.

He sat down beside a young birch tree, and pulled his boots and socks off, dangling his feet in the stream. The water was cold, bubbling quickly, and slipping over dark stones, turning it a dark green-brown colour. Celenem lapped at the water, before shaking himself and lying down beside Maglor, putting his snout on Maglor’s thigh.

* * *

 

Katur led him into the camp, after the Company accepted Maglor’s terms. Maglor bowed and politely re-introduced himself, and this time, the Dwarves reciprocated, introducing themselves as Dagmar, Ivaldi, Leif, Sviur, Nothri, and Vestri. All introduced themselves as of the Broadbeams, although Nothri had, in addition to bright blue eyes, flaming red braids, accented with amber beads. So Maglor’s hypothesis about the descendants of the Firebeards still living on in the Ered Luin had some substance to it.

Katur was not the only Dwarven woman on the expedition, either, he realised. Dagmar was also built more lightly than the male Dwarves, and her beard was thinner. Nothri was definitely the oldest, but even he was very young; there was not so much as a grey hair on his head. He sat at Katur’s right, while Dagmar sat at her left. Katur led, but Maglor thought that Dagmar and Nothri were the ones that she looked to for counsel.

“Forgive my ignorance,” Maglor said, after the introductions were done, “but where is your city? Where do the Dwarves dwell now?”

“Four days’ ride south of the river,” Katur said. “The city is… _Ithilgost,_ in this tongue, I think.” _Moon-fortress?_ “It was built in the early years after the sinking of Belegost and Nogrod.”

“I see. Do you often come north of the river?”

Katur looked somewhat uncomfortable, and shook her head. “No. We mostly stay within the city, crafting and trading with the Men.” _Men? In Lindon still?_ He’d thought nearly all of them had left with Elros to Númenor.

_Think about that later._

“So what changed to bring you here now?” Maglor asked, keeping his voice light and curious.

At that, Dagmar gave a snort. “Katur got sick of it, is what happened.” The sardonic look that Katur shot her did not seem to make much of an impression. Maglor bit the inside of his lip, so that he did not smile. “She’s always been talking about our history and lore and what it would mean to go back to the mountain. And then she started talking to us miners–” Dagmar gestured at herself, Ivaldi and Leif– “about this variety of electrum that had only been found in Belegost.”

“It _does_ sound like an interesting variety,” Ivaldi said, “if what our grandfather says his father said about it is true.”

“We’ve heard about it all our lives,” Katur said. “Not just the minerals. The old stories of what the city used to look like and was like, of the heart of the mountain. But our parents haven’t been to see the ruins.”

“Why not?”

Katur opened her mouth to reply; on her left, Nothri shifted. She looked at him, and made a quick, sharp gesture with her hand. Much as Maglor would have once done with his captains to say that the discussion was over. “He is coming with us to Belegost,” Katur said.

After a long moment, Nothri nodded, and looked away. Katur looked at Maglor, and spoke. “We’ve been told that it’s unchancy to go to the ruins. That it’s unlucky. Our parents were told the same thing.”

Maglor raised his eyebrows. It was true; the ruins of Doriath and Gondolin had become breeding places of dragons. Nargothrond hadn’t, as far as he knew, but the ruins of Nargothrond had created woes enough without that.

Well, even if the Dwarves seemed like they would be difficult to dissuade, they should have the facts.

“Ruins can be unlucky,” Maglor said, simply. “You were taught that for a good reason. Most of you are descended from the Broadbeams of Belegost, who I knew once. They saw the way that the ruins of the cities of the Elves, in Beleriand, became refuges and breeding grounds for the creatures of the Enemy. Winged dragons, and so on.”

Dagmar’s eyes had widened, and Nothri swallowed. But neither had flinched.

Katur, meanwhile, was frowning. “You’re _that_ old?”

Maglor smiled back at her. “I am Eldest.” It was technically true, if you restricted it to the house of Finwë. “I am old as the leaves, the breeze, the trees. I remember fallen Belegost. And sunken Beleriand, too, and the One Enemy who wished to hold all the world in his grip.”

“The One Enemy is no longer within the world,” Nothri said sharply, and Maglor bit back a curse, realising that at his words, Sviur and Leif had hunched their shoulders up, looking almost frightened. “My grandfather remembers the ravens crying the news out to Ithilgost, when he was a dwarfling. And Mahal spoke to the sages about it. He is no longer in the world.”

“Yes,” Maglor said. _Thank Aulë for the stubbornness of Dwarves._ “I remember the day, too. It seemed like the sea and stars and earth all cried out at once. But just because the _Enemy_ is no longer in Arda does not mean that none of his creatures are still here.”

“Are you saying that we shouldn’t go?” Katur asked.

“No. If I thought you would be facing a dragon, then yes, I would say that going on would be foolish. But I don’t think that you will find a dragon there.” He scratched behind Celenem’s ears, grounding himself with the feeling of soft fur under his fingertips. “Two of the ruined cities of the Elves were underground, and both had been built by Dwarves. I imagine that you have heard of them both: the city of Menegroth, capital of the Kingdom of Doriath, and Nargothrond.” A round of nods. “The Kingdom of Doriath became a breeding place of dragons, after it fell. But a dragon is no small creature. It needs space to land, and space to take off; they can grow to an immense size, especially the ones that the Enemy bred during the last part of the War. They can’t live in a small space, so they would never settle in collapsed tunnels and caverns. That’s what you’re likely to find, in Belegost.”

“You’re right about that,” Katur said, with a nod. Her eyes were narrowing, as she spoke. “Great-grandfather talked about how the mountain nearly collapsed in on itself, when the Balrog attacked. Most of the survivors were the warriors who had gone out of the city to fight.”

Maglor closed his eyes for a second. Then he opened his eyes again, and met Katur’s gaze. “Just so,” he said, and he was relieved to hear that his voice was level. “So given that, I don’t think any dragons who fled the fall of Beleriand would choose it as a nesting site. I can’t see there being enough room for a dragon.”

“So it’s safe?” another of the Dwarves asked, from where he sat on a log.

“He didn’t say _that_ ,” Dagmar said, regarding Maglor with narrowed eyes.

“Of course he didn’t!” Katur said, and her beard shook, as she shook her head. She looked very exasperated. “It’s the heart of a collapsed mountain. That’s _never_ safe. But if there’s a cave-in, you deal with it anyway. Even though it’s not safe.”

Maglor smiled at her, even as wistfulness washed through him, for a morning spent on a campfire on a beach, and Neniel beside him, as two mackerels cooked in the pot. _Even if I didn’t like you, I’d still want to keep an eye on you. You’re very dangerous. Just like me._

Neniel would approve very much of these youngsters. Especially Katur. Even though she’d probably be appalled at how unskilled in woodcraft they were.

“Can you use those axes?” he asked, instead, jerking his thumb at the long-hafted walking axes that the Dwarves carried for the World Without.

A round of nods.

“Do you know how to watch each other’s backs?”

Another round of nods, although Leif looked a little dubious. That fit, though. As young as everybody in this group was, he was a little younger.

“Well, then,” Maglor said. “You already know that it’s not perfectly safe, and you think you should go anyway. I don’t see how my words have changed that.”

Araman had been chill and frozen in stillness, and the voice of Mandos like thunder, as he proclaimed the Doom of the Noldor. _Tears unnumbered,_ the Noldor had been given, for going against the Power of Doom, fate, and prophecy.

And yet, Círdan had been besieged in the Falas, when the Fëanorian forces had landed in Middle-Earth. Thingol had been beaten back to Doriath, Denethor had been killed and his bodyguard slaughtered at Amon Ereb. If the Noldor had never come, even with the evil done in Alqualondë…

Would Neniel even be alive? Morgoth would not have stopped short of the Ered Luin.

Maglor let his breath out all in a rush, and spoke again. “Sometimes, you need to go and do something, even though it doesn’t seem like it’s useful. Your history is important. The city that your ancestors built, the life that they created there, the record of that is important. Even if it is likely to be risky.” He nodded. “Yes. I think you should go. And I think you should be well-provisioned for it.”

“We traded some metalwork in Harlond, the town of the Elves, for a ferry ride across the Lhûn, and for cheese, bread and pickled vegetables.”

“Pickled vegetables are a fine thing, of course,” Maglor said. “But after a while, you need fresh ones. Did anyone ever show you what wild carrots look like?” Katur shook her head. “Allow me, then.”

* * *

 

The landscape had changed to the point where it had been a miracle they finally recognised the ruins when they came to them. The War of Wrath had re-shaped the land as surely as the War of the Valar and Morgoth; and the four centuries since had left their mark on the place as well. The road that had once run to the city had been nearly swallowed by the wood; grasses and climbing vines were scaling over ledges of rubble.

Memory gnawed at him, with the crystal clarity of the Eldar. Of how the gates into the city had been as strong as the mountain itself; around the gates, towers manned with crossbows, had stood tall and unshakeable. The halls within had been breathtaking: silver lamps that caught the moonlight and the starlight and imbued it with a gorgeous, metallic edge, and veins of quartz, purple and pale green, had been tended so that they shone in patterns on the ceilings and the walls of the hall. When the sunlight came in through the mountain shafts in the morning, the veins of rock had caught the light and flamed a deep purple.

The mountain was rubble, now, a shallow bowl in the middle of the hills, and the blue-grey slopes had turned green to halfway up the mountain, as the trees pushed further westward.

The Fëanorions had not come to help with the search, when Belegost had fallen. They had gone back north, towards Angband.

Maglor could not even remember having sung a lament, for fallen Belegost.

He saw movement in the corner of his eye. Around him, the Dwarves had finished untacking the ponies, and were taking their pickaxes out, walking forward into the rubble and studying the layout intently.

Atop one boulder, Katur glanced back and caught his eye.

“Come on, Iarwain! The stone won’t shift itself!”

No. No, it certainly wouldn’t.

Maglor pulled his harp out of his bag, and walked forward to join the Dwarves. “I remember where the northernmost entrance was. It might still be intact.”

* * *

 

The lanterns of the Dwarves gave off a warm, gentle yellow light, as they climbed into the entrance. The air was damp and chill as they came into the tunnel, with a faint smell of decay. Maglor had to crawl, rather than walk, to keep moving forward, at the head of the party, with Katur and Nothri. Behind him, padding alongside the other Dwarves, Celenem was growling softly. The smell intensified as they kept moving forward.

It could be nothing, Maglor reflected, and his hand dropped to the hilt of his sword as his left leg moved forward. It _could_ be.

Now, how did one fight in a tunnel that one couldn’t stand up in?

The Dwarves were whispering in hushed, reverent voices, as they walked on through the tunnel. In the several centuries since the War of Wrath, veins of electrum had grown in through the mining tunnels as well, gold, silver, and shining pale pink winding through the rock. Even in the meagre light of the lanterns, the mineral gleamed.

The tunnel was widening now, and the ceiling was rising as well. Possibly he might even be able to stand. That would be good; the smell was almost a stench, now, and even Katur and Nothri were beginning to notice.

Celenem’s hackles were rising now, and his growling was deeper, his teeth bared and gleaming. Nothri tilted his head, as he eyed Celenem with some concern, his grip tightening on his axe. Above them, in the periphery of Maglor’s vision, a shadow shifted.

“ _Down!”_

Mountain-born and mountain-bred, Nothri threw himself flat at Maglor’s shout and rolled, and the vampire hissed in disgust, as its prey escaped the ambush. Katur stepped forward, but the pickaxe was far too unwieldy for that job, and she had to dodge back, as the vampire lunged for her throat halfway through her swing. But at least he had room to get up now.

Maglor rolled to his feet, unsheathed his sword, and swept it up in a curving attack that took the creature’s head off its shoulders.

It crumbled into dust, leaving Nothri coughing, Celenem barking, and the batskin left on the rock of the tunnel floor. Katur herself looked wide-eyed, and the other Dwarves were not much better, as they pressed and crowded into the little cavern.

“Well,” Katur said, with a strained smile, “I’m glad we brought you along!”

“Oh,” said a voice from the ceiling, “so are _we.”_

Even their laughter sounded like crumbling dust.

Maglor looked up. Six of them. Their eyes did not glow in the dark as the eyes of the Amanyar did. But in the light of the lanterns reflecting off the rock, the outlines of their bat-shapes were quite visible.

They could not call fire, not here, not with so little air. The Dwarves had pickaxes, and would be slow–

The vampires dropped. Maglor dodged the first pounce, stabbed behind him with his belt knife in his left hand, as a second vampire leered at him and lunged. He heard the sound of wings furling, and a vicious pain flared through his shoulder. But Katur was at his side now, and stepping in front of him, so he pivoted and flicked his sword up again, in an arc aimed straight for the creature’s throat. It dodged.

_Too many of them._

He couldn’t press the advantage and step forward; it would leave Katur’s back open.

_Too many for swords–_

The blazing light of fire was the gracious gift of Aulë and Yavanna both, Grandfather Mahtan had always said, as he taught Makalaurë the hymns of the Aulendur, in praise of the warmth of light, its power, its fierceness.

Maglor sang out, sharp, clear notes that split the air of the mine, as he slashed at the vampire in front, and stabbed overhead with his dagger. The lamps were flickering now, their light almost dimming now, and he poured his strength into the song, jerking his shoulders and head backwards to avoid being bitten.

_Aulë, by your grace–_

A crescendo in the melody, his voice swooping up, and _now_ , the yellow light of the lanterns blazed out, bright and fierce as sunlight, refracting off the rock and the veins of electrum. Around his melody, there was shouting from the Dwarves, and the rock responded to their words, the minerals shining and gleaming, turning the rays of light so brilliant and dazzling that his eyes could not stay open.

He heard the vampires shriek, as they crumbled back into dust.

* * *

 

Even electrum-mad Dwarves were glad enough to get out into the sunlight after that.

He volunteered to get the water, and went down into the wood. Celenem trotted by his side, and seemed very unruffled by the experience, aside from limping a little. The dog’s thick coat had protected him, aside from one nasty scratch that ran down the side of his rib-cage.

His own shoulder was aching now; the claws of one of the vampires must have caught the skin of his back. There were larks singing in their nests, and the sunlight turned the leaves of the beech trees a glowing pale green.

The stream was bubbling, soft and sweet and rapid, and he sat down heavily on the bank, leaning down against the trunk of an alder, giving it an absent greeting. Celenem padded down and began to splash about in the stream, and Maglor closed his eyes.

He’d refill the skins in a minute.

If he kept his eyes closed, he could almost fool himself. He could breathe in the smell of fast-flowing water, the dirt of the bank, and tell himself that she was going to sit down beside him. That the sound of the water flowing was actually the felt sound of her presence in _osanwë._

Almost.

Maglor opened his eyes and whistled for Celenem to come out of the water, leaning forward to refill the skins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I am imagining that Katur is quite a privileged young dwarrowdam, with enough social clout to get into quite a lot of mischief, and just enough brains to normally get out of it. She is very fond of lore, law, and learning about the World Without. This is not terribly fashionable in Ithilgost, who tend to keep themselves to themselves. 
> 
> 2\. Ithilgost is probably about four days’ ride south of Harlond. In between, there are many small towns and villages of Men, who trade with the Dwarves and the Elves for quite a lot, and gain from being the middle-men in any dealings. This allows the leaders of the Elves and the Dwarves to not talk with each other, as they have for more or less the past four centuries. 
> 
> 3\. Electrum is a natural, rare-occurring alloy of gold and silver. It can look like shiny gold, shiny silver or shiny pale pink rose gold. It’s very pretty. 
> 
> 4\. I know. I know. Maglor went on a journey with seven Dwarves. I’m chuckling too. Bunn nearly fell off her chair laughing.
> 
> 5\. A colony of vampires! I feel like vulnerability to light and fire are acceptable weaknesses for a Tolkien vampire. And really, there are enough monsters in Tolkien’s world that decapitation doesn’t work on without adding vampires to the list. 
> 
> 6\. Well, it happened. Chapter four is posted. I can't promise regular updates – there's been a lot of upheaval in my life, including going back on treatment for ADHD, Uni semester, and personal life things – but I still love and care lots about this story, and I’m so excited to finally have this chapter done.


End file.
